Behind every great artist there is an assistant. Or more accurately,
behind the artists most often called "great" there are two, or twenty,
or enough for a full-time accountant. Many of my friends are artist's
assistants. I worked as one. My girlfriend is an assistant; my sister
is too. When I first became involved in this peculiar profession, I was
struck by the variety of tasks collected under that one umbrella, but
the art world is big, studio habits are varied, and methods of
fabrication so specialized that the required labor is as diverse as its
results. Depending on who you ask, being an artist's assistant is a lot
like being a friend, or a secretary, or a 19th-century factory worker.
Wages range from paltry to lawyerly; work spaces from stately to
slovenly to simply unsafe. Some spend their days in business-casual and
others in coveralls, but what they all share is unfettered access to
the personalities and studio workings that others only glean from CVs
or biographical blurbs. There are stories of ungainly tantrums,
eye-popping extravagance, clichéd eccentricity or profound compassion;
these accounts are traded by artist's assistants like baseball cards or
bragged about like battle scars. It would be a gross understatement to
say that it's engaging to talk with assistants about their workdays;
it's often like hearing from a star-struck therapist freed from the
binds of doctor-patient confidentiality. Much has been written on
the impact of outsourcing on art and art-making, but only a few
splatters of all that spilled ink define assistants as much more than
mindless matter in the service of something larger. [...]

[...] But what exactly is coming? The current art world is the only one I've
ever known, so I can't say for sure but I think what's happening to
artist's assistants right now is evidence of a new arrangement for
young artists. Facts and figures and everyone involved agree on how
unwieldy the art world has grown, that its base has outpaced its
upper-ranks, and that this unbridled growth (and the money that made it
happen), as well as the glut of young artists, has created more tiers
than ever before. It feels professionalized and systematized and filled
with the calculating logic of industry. Contemporary critics tell me
this is not the way it used to be--they fondly describe an idealized
world where art making was its own reward--and although they sometimes
sound like my parents' friends lamenting the lost spirit of the 60's, I
believe the lessons at the heart of their tales. What I wonder is how
the art world portrayed in their stories actually felt to young artists
back then, whether it seemed no different than the current one does
now? Did it feel like something you needed to work your way up in? Or
did it feel like a place where making work was all it took to be an
artist, and being an artist was the way to make it in the art world?
For artist's assistants, for young artists, and for art lovers, this is
a pressing question: Have the first few years in the art world always
felt like an associate's position or is that new? It is one thing to
look at art works made today and say they're too glossy, or too
commercial, or too big for their britches, but it's a much larger issue
to consider the impact of this type of work and its mode of production
on the generation of artists raised in its midst. Right now, artist's
assistant jobs keep people employed and interested and in studios
making art. They also keep young artists convinced that there is always
something more to learn and always another hurdle on the way to
success. It is an eternal delay of readiness, the paying of dues at a
phantom tollbooth. If this is new, repercussions are surely near; and
if it isn't, it’s propagating now like never before. Just take a look
at next year's crop.

Behind every great artist there is an assistant. Or more accurately,
behind the artists most often called "great" there are two, or twenty,
or enough for a full-time accountant. Many of my friends are artist's
assistants. I worked as one. My girlfriend is an assistant; my sister
is too. When I first became involved in this peculiar profession, I was
struck by the variety of tasks collected under that one umbrella, but
the art world is big, studio habits are varied, and methods of
fabrication so specialized that the required labor is as diverse as its
results. Depending on who you ask, being an artist's assistant is a lot
like being a friend, or a secretary, or a 19th-century factory worker.
Wages range from paltry to lawyerly; work spaces from stately to
slovenly to simply unsafe. Some spend their days in business-casual and
others in coveralls, but what they all share is unfettered access to
the personalities and studio workings that others only glean from CVs
or biographical blurbs. There are stories of ungainly tantrums,
eye-popping extravagance, clichéd eccentricity or profound compassion;
these accounts are traded by artist's assistants like baseball cards or
bragged about like battle scars. It would be a gross understatement to
say that it's engaging to talk with assistants about their workdays;
it's often like hearing from a star-struck therapist freed from the
binds of doctor-patient confidentiality. Much has been written on
the impact of outsourcing on art and art-making, but only a few
splatters of all that spilled ink define assistants as much more than
mindless matter in the service of something larger. [...]

[...] But what exactly is coming? The current art world is the only one I've
ever known, so I can't say for sure but I think what's happening to
artist's assistants right now is evidence of a new arrangement for
young artists. Facts and figures and everyone involved agree on how
unwieldy the art world has grown, that its base has outpaced its
upper-ranks, and that this unbridled growth (and the money that made it
happen), as well as the glut of young artists, has created more tiers
than ever before. It feels professionalized and systematized and filled
with the calculating logic of industry. Contemporary critics tell me
this is not the way it used to be--they fondly describe an idealized
world where art making was its own reward--and although they sometimes
sound like my parents' friends lamenting the lost spirit of the 60's, I
believe the lessons at the heart of their tales. What I wonder is how
the art world portrayed in their stories actually felt to young artists
back then, whether it seemed no different than the current one does
now? Did it feel like something you needed to work your way up in? Or
did it feel like a place where making work was all it took to be an
artist, and being an artist was the way to make it in the art world?
For artist's assistants, for young artists, and for art lovers, this is
a pressing question: Have the first few years in the art world always
felt like an associate's position or is that new? It is one thing to
look at art works made today and say they're too glossy, or too
commercial, or too big for their britches, but it's a much larger issue
to consider the impact of this type of work and its mode of production
on the generation of artists raised in its midst. Right now, artist's
assistant jobs keep people employed and interested and in studios
making art. They also keep young artists convinced that there is always
something more to learn and always another hurdle on the way to
success. It is an eternal delay of readiness, the paying of dues at a
phantom tollbooth. If this is new, repercussions are surely near; and
if it isn't, it’s propagating now like never before. Just take a look
at next year's crop.